


The Way of All Flesh

by draculard



Category: The Edible Woman - Margaret Atwood
Genre: Biting, Bruises, Cannibalism, Eating Disorders, F/M, Implied/Referenced Starvation, References to Depression
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-10
Updated: 2019-09-10
Packaged: 2020-10-14 03:22:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 602
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20593862
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/draculard/pseuds/draculard
Summary: He tastes like cigarettes when he kisses her. His lips are cold.





	The Way of All Flesh

Maybe the reason she doesn’t clean the apartment is because Ainsley bought new lemon-scented cleaner at the store, and there isn’t any of the old stuff left. Marian has pulled the old bottle out from the cupboard dozens of times, tipping it into the light, scrutinizing the dry plastic with a critical eye.

The old stuff smelled like pine, not appetizing in the slightest. Marian suspects that if she tried to clean with the new bottle, that lemon scent would waft into her nostrils like a tapeworm digging for her a brain. Something in her knees would snap — a ligament, a bone — and she’d fall to the floor where the cleaner was pooled, and before she could stop herself she’d be lapping it up just like a dog.

It’s easier not to clean.

It’s safer. 

* * *

Parts of the porcelain sink have turned black; it’s hard to see those spots through the mound of dirty dishes, but when Marian cocks her head just right, she can tell. She can smell it, too, though it blends with all the other smells in the kitchen — the food rotting inside the refrigerator, mostly. The trash which hasn’t been emptied in over a week. 

Sometimes she wishes Peter would come and smell her kitchen — and then he’d look at her, eyes wide and nostrils flared, and really see her. And he’d be disgusted, and he’d run away.

But the only man who comes these days is Duncan, and he hardly counts. He sees the fuzzy mold growing on Marian’s dishes and thinks,  _ Naturally. Of course. _ There’d be mold on his dishes too, if he didn’t leave them for Trevor to wash. 

He tastes like cigarette smoke when he kisses her.

His lips are cold. 

Being with him sometimes feels like standing outside barefoot in the middle of a fierce winter storm. She remembers lying next to him on the snow near the ravine, with a thin coat to protect her and nothing but a cocktail gown beneath. The snow had soaked right through her hose and chilled her skin, and she’d known then (as she knows now) that to touch Duncan would not be a relief.

He has less warmth to offer her than she has to offer him. 

* * *

No point in trying to sleep together, she tells herself. He’ll only hide beneath the sheets and smoke his cigarettes and poke her in the ribs with his elbows every time she tries to get close. He goes to bed clothed these days, for the most part. He wears his thickest sweaters and jeans. She’s caught him sleeping with his shoes on, hidden beneath the blanket. She remembers the wad of chewing gum smashed into his sole.

Still, despite the many drawbacks, she likes to watch him sleep and smooth the hair back from his forehead. She likes the clammy feeling of his skin beneath her palm. 

He doesn’t wear cologne; she’s noticed that before. No artificial scent of chemicals clings to his neck or wrists. No musk, no pine, no lemon.

She lowers her teeth to his jugular and all she tastes is flesh.

* * *

“Mm,” he says in the morning, inspecting the bruise in her bathroom mirror. It's the same dispassionate noise he makes when he digs into a homemade dish at dinner time. His fingers crawl like spiders over the column of his neck. He doesn’t hesitate to jab the swollen, dark spot there; he seems to relish the pain.

“What?” Marian asks. He tilts his chin back down and tsks.

“Not your best work,” he says. “Next time you might try tearing at the skin.”


End file.
